XV.

Art thou a Magistrate? then be severe:

41

If studious, copy fair what time hath blurr'd;
Redeem truth from his jaws: if Soldier,

Chase brave employments with a naked sword

Throughout the world. Fool not; for all may have,
If they dare try, a glorious life, or grave.

XVI.

O England! full of sin, but most of sloth,
Spit out thy phlegm, and fill thy breast with glory:
Thy gentry bleats, as if thy native cloth14
Transfused a sheepishness into thy story:

Not that they all are so;45 but that most
Are gone to grass, and in the pasture lost.46

40. So Shakespeare's justice is "with eye severe," but "severus non sævus." 41. The student's end is Truth. 42. Chase i.e. pursue. The soldier is aptly warned against idleness, as in peace that honourable profession is specially beset by this temptation. 43. Fool not, etc., this advice and what follows apply equally to magistrate, student and soldier.

44. English wool has ever been famous. In 1613 one John May writing of woollen clothing says of England, "No kingdom can speak so happily of this Benefit as this Realme. The Quantitie so much as serveth all nations in the World, and the Qualitie so good, as it is chiefly desired of all." 45. Sir Henry Wotton, Lord Falkland, John Hampden are examples. 46. This means that the gentry were absorbed in their farms. To the same end asks the son of Sirach, "How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their labours, and whose talk is of bullocks." Ecclus. xxxviii, 25.

XVII.

This loss springs chiefly from our education.

vi. Education. Some till their ground, but let weeds check their son: Some mark a partridge, never their child's fashion:

Some ship them over," and the thing is done.

48

Study this art, make it thy great design;

And if God's image move thee not, let thine.49

XVIII.

Some great estates provide, but do not breed50
A mastering mind; so both are lost thereby:
Or else they breed them" tender, make them need
All that they leave: this is flat poverty.

For he that needs five thousand pounds to live
Is full as poor as he, that needs but five.

47. i.e. Send them abroad to see the world. Cowper ironically tells "How much a dunce that has been sent to roam Excelsa dunce that has been kept at home;" and a German proverb has it thus; "A gosling flew over the Rhine and came home a goose." ." The following story is from Dean Ramsay's Reminiscences. A laird's eldest son was rather a simpleton. Laird says, "I am going to send the young laird abroad." "What for?" asks the tenant; answered, "To see the world;" tenant replies, “But lordsake, laird, will no the world see him. See Spectator 364, where Philip Homebred amusingly exposes the absurdity of the abuses of travel in place of education. 48. i.e. of education. 49. If thy child does not excite thy reverent care, as being created in the image of God, regard it at least as being thine image, its parent's.

50. i.e. bring up, train; as we say well-bred, ill-bred, of manners. 51. them, the sense, not the grammar, must explain this; them refers to children implied; and so it does in the next clause, while they in following line refers to parents. 52. not has, but needs. The man whose necessities require £5000 per annum is as poor as he whose necessities are met by £5 per ann.; compare the last line of stanza xix.

C

XIX.

The way to make thy son rich, is to fill
His mind with rest," before his trunk with riches:
For wealth without contentment, climbs a hill,
To feel those tempests, which fly over ditches,
But if thy son can make ten pound his measure,
Then all thou addest may be called his treasure.

XX.

54

vii. Constancy. When thou dost purpose ought, (within thy power)
Be sure to do it, though it be but small:

Constancy knits the bones, and makes us stour”
When wanton pleasure beckons us to thrall.56

Who breaks his own bond, forfeiteth himself:
What nature made a ship, he makes a shelf."

53. Crede quod habes et habes.

54. Sæpius ventis agitatur ingens

Pinus; et celsæ graviore casu

Decidunt turres, feriuntque summos

And often, to our comfort, shall we find
The sharded-beetle is a safer hold
Than is the full-wing'd eagle.

Cymbeline act iii, sc. 3.

55. There is an obsolete substantive used by Spenser thus written, signifying attack or incursion; and Ascham uses a comparative "stoorer," in the sense of more austere or harder. Halliwell in his Dictionary of Archaisms and Provincialisms quotes from Palsgrave, tutor to Princess Mary, daughter of Henry VIII., and author of the first French Grammar written in English the following: "stoure, rude as coarse cloth is, gros." The same old author has "stoure of conversacyon, estourdy," both which examples fit in with the text, as meaning severe, stiff, inflexible. The MS in the Bodleian reads "sowre," which is an intelligible but unnecessary alteration. 56. Thrall occurs as an adjective in the sense of súbject; as a verb, to subjéct; and as a sub

XXI.

Do all things like a man, not sneakingly:

Think the king" sees thee still; for his King does."

Simpering is but a lay-hypocrisy.60

Give it a corner, and the clue undoes;1

Who fears to do ill, sets himself to task :62

Who fears to do well, sure should wear a mask.63

viii. Sincerity.

stantive, a subject, and also as here subjection or slavery, or as we should now say, thraldom

Thus in Chapman's Homer:
"Her men took land

And first brought forth Ulysses, bed and all

Thar richly furnisht it: he still in thrall

Of all subduing sleep."

And also Hudibras:

"And laid about him till his nose

From thrall of ring and cord broke loose." 57. This line is very obscure. Perhaps it means, the impulse which first made you form your resolution was as a ship to transport you on the voyage of life towards the haven of rest; but by giving up the resolution, you have wasted an energy; you make no progress, but have shelved yourself and there remain. The shelf as of rocks may be referred to here as that on which the ship is wrecked.

66

58. i.e. any superior. 59. Colossians iv. I, 'Knowing that ye also have a Master in Heaven." 60. Simpering means smiling, especially in a false or foolish way. Smiles of pretended friendship are in the layman the hypocrisy that pretended holiness is in the clerk. 61. i.e. Let this pretence have but a corner in your character, and all your moral conduct falls into a mass of indirect perplexity, as when a clue or skein of thread comes undone and lies in a mass of entanglement. 62. i.e. he searches into his motives, and judges his actions. 63. If a man is afraid to do good, better than not to do it, let him wear a mask and hide himself, as Nicodemus came by night; or even as Naaman received an implied sanction for worshipping in the house of Rimmon. The higher rule of the Gospel is "Let your light so shine before men," etc.

XXII.

ix. Gluttony. Look to thy mouth:4 diseases enter there.65
Thou hast two sconces,66 if thy stomach call;
Carve or discourse; do not a famine fear.
Who carves is kind to two;" who talks, to all.
Look on meat, think it dirt, then eat a bit;
And say withal, Earth to earth's I commit.

XXIII.

Slight those who say amidst their sickly healths,69
Thou livest by rule. What doth not so but man?
Houses are built by rule, and commonwealths.
Entice the trusty sun, if that you can,

From his ecliptic line; beckon the sky.

Who lives by rule then, keeps good company.

64. Proverbs xxiii, 2. 65. i.e. by bad air or by excessive or unwholesome food. 66. Sconce is a word chiefly heard in the University, meaning a fine for any impropriety or irregularity at meals in Hall. Herbert fitly uses it here; if you are disposed to be greedy, you can impose upon yourself two penalties or sconces; you can carve for others, or talk to them; and you need not fear that meanwhile all the food will be gone. 67. i.e. probably, to the host who would otherwise have to carve, and to himself by helping himself. 68. We were made of the dust of the earth, and the first man was called Adam, i.e. red earth, and our food is all from the earth: "as for the earth, out of it cometh bread." Besides, "unto dust shall we return," and the thought of the end, as suggested by these words from the Burial Office, may restrain appetite.

69. ie. Never mind those who deride your regularity of life, while their own ill health is the result of their irregularities.